


Overexertions

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Family, Father & Son - Freeform, Gen, Grief, Healing, Hurt & Comfort, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 18:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14550696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Gary is worried about his father, and his father is worried about him. Set after Lioness Rampant.





	Overexertions

Overexertions

“Father.” Gary glanced up from his scrolls as Gareth entered the study lined with bookshelves loaded to the brink of collapse, and Gareth, recalling how in a happier era long past he would arch his eyebrows when his son burst into his office with eager eyes and excitable invitations to games, was overwhelmed with a sensation of role reversal as if he were the son and Gary the father. This impression was only strengthened when the knots in Gary’s forehead that always appeared when he contemplated a document tied tighter upon fixing on his father in the doorway. “You shouldn’t have left your bed. We placed a bell beside it for you to ring for anything you needed precisely so that you wouldn’t have to get out of your bed.” 

“Yes, that was very thoughtful.” Leaning heavily on his cane for support, Gareth made a slow but steady progress to the closest bookshelf, hating how his heart pounded a protest with each step. “I will never strengthen my heart if I remain confined to my bed, however.” 

To be bedridden was to be on the threshold of death, and the Black God’s realm was an unknown place Gareth had no intention of exploring yet. If the Black God wanted to steal his soul, the Black God would have to chase him down, not find him waiting in his bed as meekly as a bleating lamb being led to slaughter. 

“Your heart won’t recover if you insist on straining it every opportunity you get, Father.” Gary threw down his quill in an impatient gesture that almost always meant he was frustrated at being in the company of an idiot. Like Gareth, Gary did not suffer fools gladly. Gary had forever found it tiresome rather than flattering to be the smartest one in the room, and that his son had grown smarter than him Gareth didn’t doubt. To Gareth, knowledge was a practical tool to be used to solve a problem or a weapon akin to a sword for attack and defense, but to his son knowledge was a purer, all-consuming pursuit. “I believe you’re under strict order from no less a healer than Duke Baird to refrain from overexerting yourself.” 

“I’m fetching a book, not engaging in a duel to the death, son.” Gareth’s chest did hurt—movement made the constant ache in it worse—but he had too much pride to admit such a weakness to his son, who probably saw it with his inconveniently keen gaze anyway. The days where Gareth could life for his son’s peace of mind without his son noticing were long buried in an unmarked grave. “If I can’t get a book for myself without my heart failing me, prepare my place in the family crypts.” 

It wasn’t impossible, he thought, that his heart would kill him in the end. When he was born, his mother of blessed memory had told him, his heart had a murmur. Healers had feared that the murmur heralded an early death, but the murmur faded, and Gareth’s heart hadn’t betrayed him until the coronation battle had shocked it into stopping. Each heartbeat however painful since the healers revived him was a miracle Gareth was determined not to waste in bed. 

Thinking of his beloved and lost sister, Gareth reflected that it was the great weakness of the Naxen line that the body was frailer than the spirt. It had always been a relief to him when he looked at his son to see the strong Irimor body inherited from Roanna, and the Naxen influence limited to the chestnut hair and eyes. 

His fingers had selected a book while his mind and heart were elsewhere. He might not have realized that there was a tome in his hand if Gary hadn’t stared at the title etched into the spine and remarked, “A treatise on the trade policies of the Tyran cities. That promises to be a riveting read. Do inform me if you stumble across a policy that can restore prosperity to a country in famine.” 

Once, before he had assumed the responsibilities of Prime Minister, Gary’s jokes were flippant. Now they were sharp-edged keys to unlocking Gary’s sorrows and stresses. During Gary’s prank-filled youth, Gareth had often prayed to Mithros for his son to become steadier and dig into his duties, but now that Gary had done so, Gareth discovered that he missed the careless mischief Gary created when the world failed to divert him. Roald, he thought with mingled love and resentment for his brother-in-law who had left a battered kingdom for their sons to heal, had foreseen this. 

Only a day before his final, fateful ride, Roald had commented with a faraway gleam in his eyes that it would be their sons who pulled the realm through the present crisis. After Lianne’s death, Roald hadn’t been strong enough to rule but he had sensed that Jon was and that Gary would be the one who helped him rule because Gary was more brother than cousin to Jon. Gary was the one Jon never had to ask for help since he instinctively knew what support Jon needed and when, and Gary’s help, Gareth understood, had never wounded Jon’s pride because on a fundamental level Jon regarded Gary as an extension of himself. There was no shame in relying on an extension of yourself. 

“If I find any solution for the famine, you’ll be the first to hear it.” Gareth relinquished his grip on his cane long enough to squeeze his son’s taut shoulder. “In the meantime, you might be wise to follow your own advice about avoiding overexertion. When was the last time you slept through a night?” 

“Before I began page training.” A ghost of a grin flitted across Gary’s face as his quill resumed scratching over parchment. Gary wrote as he thought: quickly and accurately as an arrow fired by a well-trained archer. “I blame all the black bags under my eyes on you, Father.” 

“I blame all my gray hairs on you.” Gareth gave a smile as thin as hope in these troubled times. “Let’s call it a draw.” 

Gareth crossed the room to return to his bed with his book but on the threshold, seized by a sudden inspiration, he turned around to offer his son what feeble assurance he could. “You’re doing well as Prime Minister, Gary. Better than I would in similar circumstances, in fact. I’m proud of you and the job you’re doing.” 

“Thank you for saying that.” There was pleasure in Gary’s eyes even as he emitted a snort that would have been the envy of any irascible horse, but the derisive noise was somehow comforting to Gareth. It was the sound his son always made when Gareth praised him for cleverness. His son, Gareth had learned, did not perceive himself as clever so much as he considered most people guilty of not thinking (and it was a rare bird indeed who thought about anything as much as Gary did). “You’re likely the only person in the kingdom who believes that but thank you.” 

“I’m the only one fit to judge,” pointed out Gareth, crisp as an autumn apple. “I’m the only other person still alive in this country who was ever Prime Minister.”


End file.
